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European Music In Numbers

IMPALA represents over 4000 independent music companiesand national associations.

IMPALA Sales Awards represent over 100 million albums sold and €1.5 billion in revenue.

The independents

The music sector consists of thousands of independentsand (since September 2012) 3 multinationals – “the majors”.

99% of music businesses are micro, small or medium sized enterprises– “the independents”.

The independents are the innovators and early adopters, discovering new talent and producing 80% of all new releases.

The independents are responsible for80% of the sector’s jobs, in line with the average 80% of Europe’s jobs generated by SMEs.

The global independent record label sector is worth $6.9bn representing 39.9% of the global market (key statistics and this infographic are taken from WIN's analysis of the independent music sector).

The biggest independent now has only 1.5% of the market. Previously this was 7%. The biggest major has 34%.

The combined market share of the majors is more than 80% (including distribution), climbing to a massive 95% for Top 100 on radio in Europe. Even the Top 2000 is concentrated - only 10% is independent.

Merlin (the global digital right agency for the independent label sector) members' distribution revenue grew eightfold in 4 years to $353M (2017).

For the third year running, over 2/3 of Merlin members reported growth each year (2017).

67% of Merlin members surveyed reported that digital income represents over 50% their overall business revenues and 64% reported that audio streaming accounts for the majority of their digital revenues (2017).

83% of Merlin members are optimistic about the future of their business (2017).

European Music

European cultural & creative sectors account for 7 million jobs and €509 billion of Europe's GDP.

Europe generatesover one third of global recorded music revenues.

European recorded music revenues totalled €5.27 billion in 2016. Streaming revenues grew to 45.5% to $1.52 billion more than compensating declines in physical formats and downloads (2016).

In Europe, paid subscription represent 83.1% of streaming revenues.

Performance rights grew by 3.4% to €1.22 billion in 2016, representing 23.2% of total European music revenues.

Copyright-intensive sectors account for 9.9 million EU jobs.

Copyright-intensive industries make a positive contribution to the EU's trade balance: net export of €15bn.

Music industry

In 2017, global recorded music revenues totalled $17.3 billion. They rose 8.1% on 2016.

The music industry's digital revenues grew by 19.1% in 2017, to $9.4bn, with a 41.1% increase in streaming revenue (2017).

Digital music revenues now account for 54% of total industry revenues, compared to 30% for physical sales (2017).

Revenues from streaming grew to $6.6 billion in 2017 - a growth of 41.1% compared to 2016 - to become the industry's primary digital revenue stream (2017).

Number of paying subscribers rose to 176 million in 2017 (97 million in 2016).

50% of top tracks played on radio and downloaded in Europe are American.

Record companies invested $4.5 bn in research and development and marketing in 2015, representing 27% of these companies’ revenues.

As a whole, the music industry invested 16.9% of its revenue in research and development for new artists in 2015. It is higher than other research-intensive industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals and biotechnology 14.4%, software and computer services 10.1%, aerospace and defence 4.5%, etc.).

IPR‐intensive industries pay significantly higher wages than other industries, with a wage premium of more than 40%, with copyright-intensive sectors having the highest premium (69%).

Digital services and Social media

There are more than 230 digital music services available across the EU, providing access to more than 40 million tracks.

6 of the top 10 most liked people on Facebook are music artists (updated: June 2016).

7 of the top 10 most followed people on Twitter are music artists (updated: June 2016).

9 of the top 10 most watched videos of all time on YouTube are music videos. Out of the top 20, 18 are music videos (updated: June 2016).